


Make Me Feel Again

by Mephilia_Venus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Moira has the chance to be a good person, but this is canon compliant, post-Retribution angst, so she doesn't take it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 00:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14659482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mephilia_Venus/pseuds/Mephilia_Venus
Summary: In the fallout of the Rialto incident, Moira receives an unexpected phone call.





	Make Me Feel Again

There was too much of Angela in the apartment.

Not in the material sense - Overwatch had kept her traveling too often to necessitate owning much more than what she needed, certainly not anything she couldn’t bear to part with when she had moved in with Moira. But the outlines of her hung in the air all throughout Moira’s flat. Not even the front door could be sacred, it echoed Angela’s final goodbye every time Moira clicked it shut.

_“What are these, Moira?” The papers were furiously thrust in front of her face the moment Moira entered the apartment, the first of what would come to be a seemingly endless series of reports on Rialto. “You told me that Blackwatch only hired you as a consultant!”_

Moira loosened her tie (deliberately chosen from the ones that had not been gifts from Angela) as she entered her small living room, setting her phone on the coffee table and ignoring it as it buzzed. There was only one person who could be trying to contact her now, and Moira needed a moment before switching from Overwatch business to Talon business. Not that Overwatch business was a concern of hers any longer; Moira hadn’t needed any of her PhDs to read between the lines of her earlier meeting with Morrison. Her presence in Blackwatch had barely been tolerated to begin with, and Reyes was hardly in a position to continue defending her employment now. As for Angela… Moira wouldn’t have sought that lifeline out, even if it had been a feasible option.

Well, Moira was still a sought-after woman, even if her networks were somewhat unorthodox. Such was the price she paid for the ignorance of others. The only truly regretful detail of her dismissal would be her inability to write a full report on the effects of her experiments on Reyes. If the regeneration capabilities he had shown thus far were any indication, Moira’s enhancements were proving to be more than effective. Talon would have to make do with the tests Rialto had allowed them to conduct, though, particularly regarding the snipers. They had revealed to be far too easy to detect.

There wasn’t much for Moira to pack. It was incredible how one could fit their entire life into two suitcases - especially since Moira’s achievements should have been able to take up so much more. She wasn’t a fool though, she had already destroyed the physical proof of her Blackwatch experiments. Talon was going to provide her with different opportunities, ones where her strides forward wouldn’t be dogged by liabilities. She just had to get through one more bloody night in Dublin.

Her foray through her closet was swift, her bedroom too unstable of an environment. The day before, Moira had found a tube of lipstick beneath her bed that must have fallen from what had been Angela’s dresser. Moira hadn’t been able to think of a way to return it that wouldn’t have been interpreted as passive-aggressive. 

The bed itself was even more dreadful of a situation. Moira had let herself grow far too accustomed to everything about Angela’s presence, to the warm curves of her body each night. 

_In more than one way, Angela was selfish in bed. On most of the nights she beat Moira back to the flat, Moira would find her sprawled across both pillows, pale blonde hair fanned out around her face like a storybook princess. God, this was what Angela had done to her, making Moira think in metaphors that hadn’t crossed her mind in decades._

_Moira laughed softly as she stripped down to her unbuttoned shirt, shifting Angela’s sleeping form enough to make space for herself. In truth, there was practically nothing Moira could do that would be capable of rousing Angela once she was asleep, but Moira’s touch was still gentle against her bare shoulder. For Angela Ziegler had been the first gentle thing to enter Moira’s life in a long time._

One more thing for Moira to leave behind.

There weren’t many ways for her to kill the time until her flight in the morning. Watching the news was pointless, it was all the same sensationalized coverage of Overwatch’s “scandal” that had been plaguing Moira for the last four days. Her dual-colored eyes strayed to the bookshelf resting beside the faded couch, past the shelves housing science journals and discarded drafts of papers.

The spines of Oscar Wilde’s complete works stared back at her. Moira was fairly certain she could manage that, pretend they hadn’t been a Hannukah gift from Angela (despite Moira’s non-observance of practically every holiday, holy or secular) as an apology for the copy of _Dorian Gray_ she had spilled coffee on. In fact, Moira even had some whiskey stored away she could pair with it, the stuff Angela had hated and never let Moira drink.

_“I don’t think so,” Angela decreed after one whiff of the bottle._

_Moira smirked at the disdainful expression on the doctor’s face as she took the drink from Angela’s hands. “What’s the matter? Does the good Doctor Ziegler not indulge in anything stronger than champagne?”_

_Angela scoffed. “It’s only a personal preference of mine to not feel as though I’m about to be fucked inside a seedy pub bathroom every time I kiss my partner.”_

_Letting out a bark of laughter as she returned the whiskey to its cupboard, Moira wrapped a hand around Angela’s waist. “Have I told you before how much I love hearing you swear?”_

_“Really?” Angela murmured as she tilted her head upwards, her soft pink lips brushing against Moira’s ear. “That’s good to know.”_

After another moment’s thought, Moira abandoned the temptation of alcohol, unceremoniously packing the books into her suitcase. As she did so, her phone vibrated against the glass of the coffee table yet again, the third time in half an hour. She didn’t recognize the number, so Moira was tempted to keep ignoring it, but that also likely meant it was one of her Talon contacts. She couldn’t risk the chance that some loose thread in Overwatch had been compromised.

“What is it?” she snapped upon answering the call.

A stuttering male voice Moira didn’t recognize responded, clearly thrown off guard by the acidity of her tone. “Um, sorry, miss… Is Moira O’Deorain present?”

Moira debated whether to hang up right there. If it wasn’t Talon, it was likely some scientific publication looking for a way to drag her name through the mud all over again in the wake of Rialto. But she drew in a deep breath, rubbing at her temples as she responded, “Presently speaking.”

The man on the other end was still tentative as he continued, “Well, ah, Miss O’Deorain… I’m from Beaumont Hospital. We have a Miss Angela Ziegler here. You’re listed as her emergency contact?”

The world around Moira grayed out. When had… God, that was something Angela would have done, probably right after she had moved in. And if Angela wasn’t calling Moira from the hospital herself, what could that mean?

 _“It’s not your bloody problem anymore, Moira,”_ she tried to remind herself. Angela had made that quite clear, even if she didn’t seem to have had the time to change her own information at the hospital in the three days since.

“What’s happened?” was what Moira asked instead.

“There was a protest outside her workplace,” the man from the hospital said. Moira was quite familiar, she had exited the Overwatch building for the last time through the sanitation tunnels to avoid it. “It… well, it grew violent. Miss Ziegler was trying to break up a fight when she took a blow to the head. She nearly got trampled by the crowd before a security officer pulled her to safety.”

Damn it, what time was it? Moira barely remembered she was wearing a watch until she looked down. Just after 11. Her flight left in roughly six hours.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

*****

Under the harsh florescent lights of the hospital room, Angela’s sleeping form looked much less like a princess and more like… well, a head trauma victim. A nurse had cleaned the blood from Angela’s hair, but a large white bandage was patched above her right eye, and her right wrist was similarly wrapped.

“Quite the state you’ve landed yourself in, Angela,” Moira muttered. She rested her elbows on her knees, her fingers falling into their habitual tent supporting Moira’s chin. “You never have been one to walk away from a lost cause.”

If Angela was in stable condition, there wasn’t much reason for Moira to stay. She moved to stand from her bedside position as Angela stirred, and Moira was frozen to the spot as Angela’s head turned, her bleary blue eyes registering the sight of Moira’s face.

“What are you doing here?” Angela asked, the words accusatory despite their slight slur from the painkillers.

Moira spread her hands. “You put me down as the number for the doctors to call. A fact you failed to ever run by me, I might add.”

Angela rolled her eyes as much as she could. “I did, the first night I moved in. Even if I hadn’t though, that would hardly begin to make us even.”

Sighing, Moira leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t come here intending to restart their earlier fight, but she hadn’t planned to apologize for it either. There was no possible way Angela had never heard whispers of what truly went on in Blackwatch, even if she had chosen to ignore them. “I can leave if that’s what you would prefer.”

Angela was silent, and Moira wondered for a moment if the drugs had pulled her back under. She had turned her head away from Moira, but Moira heard her softly say, “You didn’t have to come.”

The vulnerability in her voice melted all the barbed counters Moira could have thrown back at her. After an extended pause, Moira simply replied, “No. I didn’t.”

Soon enough afterwards, Moira recognized the slow rise and fall of Angela’s chest indicating she had slipped back into sleep. Moira stood over her, brushing a lock of pale gold hair back from Angela’s face. The late Zieglers truly couldn’t have chosen a better namesake for their daughter.

Moira had a sense that this was the part where she was supposed to be a better person. Overwatch was on its way out, and anyone who denied the fact was a fool. Angela had spoken of other dreams though, ones the bureaucracy of her current position kept her from pursuing. Moira could stay, work at her side. Put her own research on the shelf for the time being.

But Moira knew Angela. Now that she had learned the truth, she would see it as her mission to save Moira. It was Angela’s belief that anyone could be redeemed, that no conflict could only end in death. It was not Moira’s.

No, Moira had sold her soul to her own inner demon long before she had held Angela in her arms. And it was not a contract she desired any form of salvation from. The least she could do though, was not condemn Angela to a similar portrait of darkness.

Moira reached into her suitcase, retrieving a slim book with a simple black cover. It fell open to the page she desired on its own.

She laid it where she had been sitting, pressed a final kiss to Angela’s forehead, and left to catch her flight.

*****

When next Angela woke, her head was clearer. She had a vague recollection of several doctors coming in and out of the room, and… a familiar red-haired woman leaning over her. Moira had been here.

Part of Angela hoped that she had torn into Moira, that she had let her know exactly how much betrayal Angela had felt stabbing into her with each mention of Moira’s name she had read in the Rialto report. Truthfully though, there was nothing Angela hadn’t already made clear before storming out of Moira’s flat.

Angela of all people knew the effects of the sort of medicine circulating through her bloodstream right now, and she sat up slowly, testing for any signs of wooziness as she stretched her uninjured arm outwards. She tilted her head in both directions, then stopped as she caught sight of a book lying where Moira had been sitting earlier. Angela’s contacts weren’t in, but she recognized it as part of the set she had given Moira the previous December.

One of the nurses had left Angela's purse for her at her bedside, and Angela reached into it, rummaging for her glasses. Her heart was heavy as she slid the golden frames on, reaching for the book - _The Ballad of Reading Gaol._

There was no visual indicator, but Angela’s eyes instinctively found the passage she could feel was Moira’s message for her. They had known each other well, after all. Or so Angela had thought.

_Yet each man kills the thing he loves_  
By each let this be heard.  
Some do it with a bitter look,  
Some with a flattering word.  
The coward does it with a kiss,  
The brave man with a sword. 

Angela brushed her fingertips over the words, understanding their meaning and desperately hoping she was mistaken. She pressed the book to her chest, a soft, gulping sob escaping her mouth as the first of the tears began to roll down her cheeks.

They had never said it out loud. But Angela suspected they had realized it at the same time. As so often, only when it was too late.


End file.
